


make no mistake of all we've been through

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Malex Week 2020, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25283428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Isobel wants a tongue ring, but the only person in their high school who has one is Alex Manes and she has some very specific information she needs to collect. Proposing a transactional makeout session, she figures it'll be easy as anything -- until Michael stumbles onto it.
Relationships: Isobel Evans/Alex Manes (Briefly), Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 36
Kudos: 169





	make no mistake of all we've been through

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Crystal! The beta-work is impeccable as always.
> 
> Day 3 - Teen / "I can explain!"

When Alex closes his locker, Isobel Evans is standing there, black streak in her blonde hair, and staring at him with an intense, eager smirk.

“Yes?”

He grabs his things and starts walking outside, sticking the books in his backpack as he heads for home. She falls in line, which means he’s not going to shake her off that easily. It’s not that he dislikes her, but she’s Isobel Evans, Queen Bee. He talks to Max, because Max is in love with Liz (as much as he tries not to let that show), but Isobel? Nah. Never.

It’s why this is so weird that suddenly she’s paying attention to him. 

“You got a tongue ring on your sixteenth birthday, right?”

He sticks his tongue out, showing off the piercing that’s been there ever since. The round barbell gleams in the New Mexico sunlight, and he can’t help how proud he is that he’s managed to keep it for fourteen months -- true, he needs to take it out when Jesse is around, but it hasn’t healed up during any of those breaks. “Can confirm,” he says.

“Great,” Isobel says brightly. “I want to make out with you, then.”

Alex nearly drops his skateboard, choking on a laugh. “Um…”

She blinks at him, gesturing for them to keep walking. 

Alex follows after her, not sure what to do about this. Hasn’t she heard the rumors? Doesn’t she know that Alex Manes would much rather make out with the Michael Guerins of the world and not the Isobel Evans? He tries not to blush, thinking about the boy who’s been staying in his shed, and how much he wishes that Michael was the one asking to make out.

“Is this about the rumors?” Isobel keeps talking, digging into her backpack as she looks for something. “Please. I don’t like you like that and I won’t be offended if making out with me doesn’t do anything for you. This is a transactional makeout,” she says, letting out a triumphant cry as she finds what she’s looking for, fanning out an array of items. They include hair dye, piercings, nail varnish, and CD’s. 

She’s _bribing_ him.

“Look, I want to get one, but I want to know what it feels like to make out with someone who has a tongue ring before I go down that road,” she says, walking backwards to coax him to join her. “I get that you’re not really into girls, but I’m pretty sure you can close your eyes and pretend I’m some smooth-faced pretty boy,” she teases. “Half the time, that’s what I do.”

He bites back the retort that she doesn’t have the right hair for him to pretend, but he stares longingly at the hair dye and the CDs. Money from the UFO Emporium tends to go into his savings account to get out of Roswell, but it’s been a rough few months with fewer shifts, and he’d really love to be able to have those luxuries.

“Ten minutes,” he negotiates.

“Fifteen.”

“Eleven,” he counters, refusing to give too much leeway.

Isobel studies him brightly. “Fine. Let’s go!”

Now? She wants to do this right now? 

Alex wants to argue that he’s got homework, but she’s in most of his classes and she knows he doesn’t. More than that, he also has the sneaking suspicion that Isobel Evans won’t care about what Alex wants. 

She’s got a well-deserved reputation of going after what she wants and getting it. Right now, that thing happens to be Alex. 

Jesse’s car is in the driveway, so Alex gestures to the shed. Rather than taking out his piercings and putting them back in behind his bedroom door, he’d rather do this in the shed and avoid that altogether. 

He peers inside the window, not seeing Michael inside, which means it’s safe (even if his sleeping bag is still on the futon). Once he gets inside, he nudges it aside and settles, gesturing for Isobel to sit beside him.

She eyes the sleeping bag suspiciously, but takes a seat, looking prim and a little wary about what she’s sitting on. 

“Who sleeps out here?”

“No one,” Alex rushes to answer, which is probably too quick, given her suspicious eye. “Didn’t you wanna make out?” He acknowledges how weird it is that he’s encouraging this, but the less Isobel asks about his nightly guest, the better.

She takes the bait.

“I did,” she agrees slyly, and slides over towards him. 

There’s no doubt who’s in charge here. She grabs him by the neck, drapes one of her legs over his, and pulls herself into his lap to settle in, tangling her fingers through his hair as they slide up, grabbing a little too hard. 

He winces and pulls back, which makes her pause. “No?”

“No,” he agrees, and shifts them a little, gently easing her out of his lap to get her back on the futon, hand on her shoulder as he leans in to kiss her, closing his eyes so he can pretend that it’s someone else. 

He’s kissed girls before -- the few when he wanted to prove he was normal, then Maria, but this feels clinical because it is. She’s not into this any more than Alex is, and every few moments, her speculative little ‘hmm’ like she’s sampling paint swatches to decide which to choose brings it home. 

Meanwhile, Alex is just thinking about how soon after she goes that he can dye his hair. 

It’s not that the kiss is so good that Alex is tangled up to the point of distraction, but his back is to the door, which is why he misses the fact that someone’s coming. If only it were Jesse. Maybe seeing Alex making out with a girl would have saved him some beatings, even if it would mean Alex lying about who he truly is.

Alex isn’t that lucky. 

It’s not Jesse. It’s the person that Alex _wishes_ he were making out with. 

“What the _fuck_?”

The sound of a heavy backpack slamming on the floor distracts Alex, jolting back from Isobel to stare at Michael standing in the door of the shed, a shocked look on his face.

_Shit_.

“Michael, I can explain,” Alex says in a rush. 

“Michael?” Isobel says, her voice soft and wary. “What are you doing here?” 

“Pretty sure that’s what I should be asking you, Isobel! What the hell?” Michael’s cheeks are flush with fury and he bends down to grab his backpack, shaking his head in disbelief. “What the hell, this is…”

He can’t go. 

He can’t leave, because Alex needs to explain, but he also can’t leave because where is he going to sleep? It’s so cold out at night, and if Michael storms off, Alex knows he’ll be spending the night in the back of his truck and that’s not acceptable. 

Alex chases after Michael, grabbing his arm to prevent him from getting back in the truck even though he doesn’t catch up to him until Michael is steps away from leaving. “Hey! Wait!” he pleads. “I can explain,” he reiterates. 

“And here I thought that you were…” Michael’s whole body is compacted with tight fury, not moving, not shifting, and his voice sounds equally taut. “Whatever,” he mutters, staring down at his hands, trying to pull away from Alex. “You can go make out with Isobel. It’s easier, I bet.”

“Guerin!” Alex pleads as Michael pulls himself out of Alex’s grasp, storming off before Alex can protest that it didn’t feel like anything, and it did nothing at all for him. 

He stands there, dejected, staring at the dust that Michael’s truck kicks up in his hasty departure. He feels absolutely stuck in place, the worst case scenario of any of his fantasies playing out in front of him. Michael thinks that he wants to make out with Isobel, not him, and he walked in and _saw_ it.

He sees Isobel creeping out from the shed in the corner of his eye, but Alex doesn’t stop staring at Michael’s truck as it recedes in the distance.

“I’m gonna go,” she says, clearly not wanting to stay and make out now that Alex looks as distraught as he does.

Michael’s sudden arrival definitely killed the mood.

“I left your stuff on the futon,” she says. “Are you gonna be okay?”

He lets out a wounded noise, starting to wonder if the transactional worth of the things Isobel bribed him with are worth Michael storming off like that. She looks awkward, not sure what to do about that non-answer as she grabs her bag, gesturing towards the road.

“So, I’m gonna go?” 

Alex swallows back his worry and fear, though the pit in his stomach seems to be growing. “Yeah,” he says, his voice scraped raw of any hope. She goes with one last glance at him over her shoulder, but still clearly doesn’t know how to comfort him, because she keeps moving in the same direction as where Michael left. 

What the hell did he just do? 

And how the hell did he think that any hair dye could be worth losing a chance with Michael?

Dejected, Alex heads back to the shed to find his guitar, knowing that the only thing that will quiet any of the chaos in his head right now is a song.

* * *

Why is Isobel absolutely not surprised to come home to her mother saying she has a visitor in her bedroom. She hadn’t been surprised to see Michael’s truck in the driveway, knowing that there’s a reckoning to be paid for her little stunt. What’s amusing is when her Mom says to _behave_ , because he doesn’t seem like a nice boy. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not a nice girl,” she quips, much to her mother’s dismay, and heads upstairs to find Michael stewing on her bed, biting at his nails until they’re blunt echoes of nothing. 

She locks the door behind her, crossing her arms over her chest while glaring at him. She can tell that he’s _mad_ , furious even, because it’s bleeding through their psychic bond. “What?” she demands.

“You made out with Alex!” Michael shouts at her, jumping straight to the point. “He’s gay, Iz, he doesn’t _want_ that!”

“It was transactional, you ass,” she says, smacking his hip to make room for herself. “He has a tongue ring and I want one. I gave him a bunch of shit to make out for ten minutes. I would’ve expected him to be the one freaking out about it, not you.” Which brings up the question, “Why _are_ you freaking out about it?”

Does Michael have a crush on her? Is this some weird jealousy thing?

Michael inhales with so much fury that his nostrils flare, but when he exhales, no words come out. Finally, flailing his arm around, he says, “You don’t just get to make out with people because you buy them shit! You’re….you’re buying him off, and using him, and he’s _nice_ , Iz, he’s so nice. I get that he’s cute and looks great and who hasn’t thought about the tongue ring, but he’s supposed to be with …” He trails off, like he’d nearly said something he didn’t mean to.

It clicks then, as the pieces start to come together.

Michael’s presence at the shed. That sleeping bag on Alex’s futon is one she’s seen before, but in the back of Michael’s truck. The distraught, crushed look on Michael’s face when he’d seen Alex and Isobel making out. The way she’d sometimes see Michael staring at Alex, which she’d always written off as some kind of envy or desire to be like him -- an outcast who didn’t give a fuck.

It all clicks.

This has nothing to do with Isobel.

“Michael,” she whispers, staring at him with wide eyes. “You’re…”

“Don’t say it,” he warns, cutting her off. “I’m not anything! You just shouldn’t make out with Alex because you want a tongue ring and you want to know how it feels. He deserves to be kissed because he’s _Alex_. He deserves to be kissed because he’s incredible, and just because he’s dealing with idiots who don’t kiss him and take advantage of the moment, it doesn’t mean he should be settling.”

Isobel gives Michael a tender look, reaching over to squeeze his arm. “What happened, Michael?”

“We had a moment,” he says quietly. “He leaned in to kiss me. It almost happened, we were almost kissing, until I ruined it. I messed up. Then, today, I come back to talk to him about it and I find him with your tongue down his throat,” he says flatly.

It’s all one big misunderstanding, but luckily, Isobel has yet to meet a problem she can’t fix.

“Do you want to kiss him?”

Michael stares at his shoes, scuffing them against the carpet, shrugging uselessly. _Men_ , god, why are they so pathetic? 

“Michael…” she chides.

“I don’t know, Iz, I just know he makes me feel things in a way that no one ever has before. It scared me,” he admits, swallowing with a gulp. “I think maybe seeing you two making out made me realize there are way more terrifying possibilities out there, like him finding someone else.”

She’s taking that as a ‘yes, Isobel, I do want to make out with the resident emo hottie’. 

“I’m not going to make you define yourself to me,” she says, wishing he weren’t being such an idiot about this. “If you like Alex, we can just leave it at liking Alex.” 

“I do like him,” Michael says so softly that she has to strain to hear it. “But so what? I messed it up when I pulled away and I doubt reacting the way I just did helped.”

Maybe not, but Isobel has a plan.

“Be here tomorrow,” she instructs. “After school, be here or I tell Max that you’re the one who put the fish in his car.”

“Because you dared me to!”

“Semantics,” she says, flipping her hair back from her face. “We’ll fix it tomorrow when you come back.” 

He’s still sulking, but his reluctance to leave doesn’t seem to be because he wants to go. Isobel thinks about the sleeping bag in Alex’s shed, and how it hadn’t been in the back of Michael’s truck when she’d walked up the driveway. 

“Actually. Change of plans. You’re not going anywhere,” she says. “You’re sleeping over tonight. I’ll tell Mom that you left when she goes to her book club.” 

The relief is instantaneous. “Thank you,” he breathes out.

She can give him a place to stay tonight and with some luck, tomorrow she can also give him what he’d wanted so badly when he crashed the makeout session today -- a kiss from the boy who’s equally crazy about him.

* * *

The next day, Ann Evans gives Isobel a worried look when she comes back from the store, having grabbed some supplies that she thinks might be necessary later.

“Sweetheart, why are there _two_ boys in your room now?”

“Study session,” Isobel lies breezily. “We’re all in the same calculus class and the midterm is coming up. We need study help.” 

Ann doesn’t entirely look like she believes it, but Isobel knows that even she’s heard about Michael’s grades and that he might smell like trouble, but his academic record is clean as a whistle. “I made some snacks,” she says, gesturing to the tray of food nearby.

That’s her mother. 

She might be wary about the type of company Isobel is keeping, but god forbid they leave this house hungry. They might _say_ something and what would happen to their reputation then? 

Isobel brings the tray of food upstairs, entering her room to find Alex sitting awkwardly on her bed while Michael sits near the headboard. There’s five feet of space between them, but she’s not sure she blames them.

It’s not like she’s told them why they’re here yet.

“We have a misunderstanding to sort through,” she tells them, putting the tray on her bedside table and plucking a few carrots up to crunch down on them as she assesses how to get right to the point. “Michael, you walked in on a makeout session solely intended for research. Alex, you could have, oh, locked the door or told me that Michael’s been bunking with you. And both of you could have talked instead of running from the issue.”

Alex hasn’t lifted his head, but Michael’s doing that sheepish ‘I’m an idiot, please forgive me’ face he uses on her.

“Tell Alex what you told me,” she orders.

Michael looks like she’s just asked him to jump into icy water, naked. “What?” 

Isobel holds up her physics textbook in warning. 

“Jesus!” Michael yelps. “Fine! All right,” he says. He shifts, sliding his way down to the foot of the bed so that he’s on even ground with Alex, giving him a wary look as he sits there, cross-legged, fidgeting with his fingers. “It pissed me off when I found you and Isobel making out.”

“Really?” Alex deadpans. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Let him talk,” Isobel says, and it’s like pulling teeth.

“It’s because I hated you making out with someone _else_. If you’re gonna kiss anyone, I…” Michael inhales sharply, a breath pulled in through his teeth. “Fuck, Alex, I want it to be me.” 

Alex doesn’t have a witty comeback to that one.

Funny how that works.

“I know I pulled away from you,” Michael says when neither Alex nor Isobel gives him a break by saying anything. “I was scared. I freaked out, and I didn’t really know what I was feeling. I didn’t mean to ruin our chances completely, so when I came back to the shed and found you making out with Isobel, I lost it.”

“I told you, Guerin, it didn’t mean anything.”

Michael’s face is a picture of bright hope, a look that makes Isobel’s heart ache with envy. “I know,” he says, “Isobel helped me get that.”

The nerves are so strong that Isobel swears she’s breathing them in. Some of it is coming from Michael and the connection between them, but the way Alex keeps holding his breath is giving Isobel a serious case of sympathetic angst.

She wants so badly to jump in and force them together, but they need to do this for themselves.

“You want to be the one I’m kissing?”

“Yeah,” Michael breathes out, uncrossing his legs so he can slide an inch or two closer to Alex, acting like Isobel isn’t even in the room.

Honestly, at this point, she thinks he’s forgotten that she is. She might as well be a ghostly specter observing from the other side, for all that they’re paying attention to her. 

“You’re the only one I’ve wanted to kiss for the last few months. I might be a genius, but I’m real stupid when it comes to guys I really, really like.” 

She hears Alex’s sharp intake of breath, holding her curled fists over her mouth to remind herself not to make a noise and ruin it. Alex’s eyes are half-lidded, staring at Michael’s lips, and the little noise he makes is so painful and so earnest that Isobel nearly shouts, ‘Kiss him, you idiot!’

Isobel doesn’t end up waiting much longer.

“You can, you know.”

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

Michael laughs as he melts towards Alex, swaying in towards him like he’s a magnet being pulled to its opposite pole, tumbling in as he cups Alex’s neck and drifts in to kiss him. 

Isobel might have been in the middle of it, but she already knows that the way Alex kisses him back is nothing like his kiss with her. From the start, the noises Alex makes are infinitely more searching, more desperate, more demanding. The way his hands are getting involved is also telling, given how frozen he’d seemed with her, as if he’d been deathly afraid of grazing her boobs or something. 

There’s no hint of that concern with Michael, and Isobel takes it as the time to look away when Alex’s hands start groping at Michael’s chest, his hips, and then the crotch of his jeans.

She turns pointedly away, though not before she pulls the snack tray with her to the foot of the bed where she’s sitting with her back against it, a few feet away from the heated makeout session currently happening behind her. 

“Just so you both know,” she says, biting down on her cracker as she waves around a piece of cheese, mouth still full of crumbs. “This is my transactional favor making it up to you for moving in on your man,” she says, peering over her shoulder to see Michael giving her the finger.

Even if he hasn’t taken his other hand off Alex’s ass and hasn’t stopped making out with him.

“Fine, don’t appreciate me,” she huffs. “But just so you know, I’m the one who went and bought you the supplies you need,” she says, lobbing the plastic bag with lube and condoms inside towards them. “Alex, I’m assuming you’re a magnum.”

“Oh my god,” Michael groans, far from shamed, but clearly _wanting_.

Alex’s exhalation, though, is pure embarrassment. “Isobel!”

“What, I might have copped a feel,” she protests. “Plus, the way Kyle Valenti goes around complaining, I get the sneaking suspicion that he saw you in the shower after gym and feels inadequate,” she says, with the cutting assessment of someone who knows her business.

She turns back around, but her smugness is off the charts when she hears the tell-tale crinkling of one of them grabbing the shopping bag of supplies. 

“Is everything okay up there?” calls Ann Evans, when none of them have done much talking in the last fifteen minutes.

Isobel has been chomping on snacks as she works on her homework, and a cursory glance behind her shows the plastic bag sticking out of the back pocket of Michael’s loose jeans, and the both of them flushed and embarrassed looking as they bolt apart at the sound of someone else’s voice.

“It’s fine,” she calls back, “We’re just working on a really complex problem, but,” she says, with a fiendish look at Alex and Michael, chin lifted up in the air, “I think I finally solved it for all of us.”

Michael mouths ‘thank you’ at her and even Alex looks fairly appreciative.

It’s well deserved, she thinks. 

Now she just has to make sure they don’t do anything stupid like fuck it all up the minute the leave the safe space of Isobel’s bedroom, but she’s never backed down from a challenge before and it’s the kind of thing she’d love to put her focus on. 

She might not be valedictorian, she might not be class president, but if there’s one legacy she intends to leave behind, it’s that she’s going to make Michael happy and safe, because they haven’t done enough of that over the years.

* * *

“...and I’d just like to end my toast to the happy couple by reminding everyone here that if it weren’t for my great generosity of spirit…”

“...more like she wanted a tongue ring…”

“Shut up, Michael. My _inherent_ and thoughtful generosity is why we’re here today to introduce Alex and Michael Guerin to the world as our newest happily married couple,” she pronounces, raising her champagne flute. “To Alex and Michael!” she gleefully says, performing her maid of honor duties with poise and ease. 

Their friends and approving members of family are here, including Sanders, who had taken Michael in when Isobel put out some feelers that he needed a place to live. For the last six years, while Michael went to school, Sanders has been there for him as a father figure, but Isobel still counts herself as the most important member of Michael’s family.

She’s the one who got him together with his now-husband, after all.

Watching them kiss again, newly wedded, Isobel sits back with the preening pride of a woman who got her way, dragging her tongue ring over the roof of her mouth as her attention turns to Alex’s bridesmaids and groomsmen, landing on Rosa Ortecho. 

Tapping the ring against her teeth, she excuses herself from the group of speakers and heads down the table to take a seat next to Liz’s older sister, draping her arm around her shoulder. 

“So,” she says under her breath, mindful of Sanders’ speech and trying not to talk too loud that they interrupt it, “you ever had someone with a tongue ring go down on you before?”

Rosa casts her a suspicious side-look, letting out a huff of laughter. “Not that I can remember?”

“Wanna start?”

She probably deserves that eye roll, but Isobel’s fine -- Rosa leans in and mumbles, ‘bathroom in five minutes’, which means that Isobel is about to absolutely win this wedding. Five minutes later, just as Sanders is done giving his gruff, emotional speech, Isobel excuses herself to go follow after Rosa and render the bathroom stall out of use for the next hour.

On this amazing, happy, treasured day, Isobel knows one thing above all else -- deciding to get a tongue ring is the best decision she’s ever made.

Somehow, she suspects that Michael and Alex would agree.


End file.
